excerpt
My Brother’s Keeper
Thursday, January 17, 1570.
My brother Salvador can’t use his hands yet. I’m writing this at his
bidding. I’m Bartolomé Cepeda, the captain of La Paloma Blanca, a
three-mast, 150 ton pinnace.
We have just left San Lúcar de Barrameda at the mouth of the
Guadalquivir River. We are heading to the Canary Islands where I
will recruit the rest of the crew. We only have thirty men now, but
there was no time. We had to escape the Inquisition.
We have set course toward Nuestra Señora de Caraballeda, in the
province of Venezuela. Salvador wants to find the Indian girl,
Apacuana. But, first, I must tell how I rescued him.
It took me a year to recover from the dysentery that killed most of
my crew and to devise a plan to bribe my way in and out of that
jail. Salvador had impersonated me and had been taken prisoner
in my stead. Not much is needed to attract the Inquisition, much
less if who denounces you is an influential son of a whore. But I
won’t go into that now.
Libros Libertad 